


Frozen Waffles

by Karios



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mosty gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:25:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7329505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parker reflects on the team's different ways of dealing with emotions, as she handles a few tears of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen Waffles

Parker cries a lot more than they would think.

That's okay with her. It’s better than okay. That's the way she wants it, she thinks...at least, mostly.

Otherwise they’d all start treating her like Sophie does sometimes: like something to fix. And the fixing thing is Sophie’s way of feeling better. If she's fixing them then she doesn't feel as in need of fixing. And if everyone were being Sophie then Sophie couldn’t be Sophie, and that just wouldn't work.

So Parker lets Sophie fix, and she lets Eliot think she's crazy, and she lets Hardison enjoy all the kissing and making those weird little faces at her...and whatever, as Eliot would add.

She keeps trying to get Eliot to tell her what the 'whatever' means, but he won't.

Oh she forgot Nate. Nate is easy; she lets Nate think she's useful. Sometimes, she thinks she must be a great grifter after all. Because she can make all of them think things. 

She's not with any of them now, so she doesn't have to worry about not crying. She's also curled up under lots of blankets, but she's still cold. She gets up to turn the heat on knowing she’ll still be cold anyway. Parker is like a waffle from the freezer, if you don't cook it right, it gets brown and crusty on the outside while staying cold and hard on the inside, and then someone throws it away.

Parker flops back under all her blankets, teeth chattering. She aches like she’s fallen recently, even though she hasn’t. 

Parker wishes she had something the way the rest of them did. She can't take hurting people, cause that's Eliot’s, even if he doesn't always find it as fun as she would. Everyone can't be Eliot anymore than everyone can be Sophie and she's already gone over that. She's tried video games, like Hardison, but pressing buttons to jump off somewhere feels nothing at all like really jumping off somewhere, plus that would mean owning more stuff. That leaves drinking, like Nate, and although Parker knows for sure that that can definitely belong to more than one person, it seems the least good idea of all.

Not having a feel better thing is okay. It goes with all the other things she doesn't have. Instead she sticks to curling up and crying until her insides hurt, until her voice will sound a little different tomorrow, until her eyes are a little drier. She considers hatching from her blanket cocoon to go find a good ventilation shaft--it's like being hugged by a building--the best way to sleep. But Nate would be calling them together (she hoped) soon and she doesn't want to be late.

When her phone rings she answers with a muffled, “Hey.”

“Parker?” It’s Nate, sounding confused.

“Who else would I be?” she asks in return. “Did you call the wrong number? Is this what they mean by drunk dialing?”

There's a long sigh, which is Nate’s. Then crackling, which is the phone being tossed to someone else.

“Hello?” Parker tries again.

“Parker just get down here, we’ve got a case.” The accompanying growl makes it definitely Eliot.

“Where’s here?” she asks, a tiny smile blooming under her red-lidded eyes.

“The H--Nate’s,” he responds, cut off by a glare Parker cannot see but can so easily imagine.

“Got it,” she says.

And the muttered, “there's something wrong with that girl,” she hears just before the line gets cut off, lets her know that everything is right with her world.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope Parker sounds IC enough, I write her rarely. Sorry to make my AO3 debut so sad, promise to be cheerier next time. Thank you for reading!


End file.
